02/04, 8:31am

Cloud-based backup service Backblaze is releasing the data it used to create its recent hard drive reliability study. The data collection covers over 41,000 hard drives, used by the company in its custom Storage Pods to hold customer data, and is said to be the "largest data set on disk drive performance" to have ever been provided to the public.

05/12, 3:52pm

Research on 34,000 hard disks finds no correlation between failure and temperature

The operating temperature of a hard drive does not directly affect the failure rate, according to research by backup cloud service BackBlaze. After analyzing over 34,000 drives, the company found there to be no overall correlation between failure and temperature when looking at the data as a whole, but some drives were found to be affected by heat.

02/05, 11:49am

BackBlaze 2.5 updates online accounts, adds e-mail notifications

Backblaze has updated its software to version 2.5, adding a number of account-related and client changes. The main account page has been reorganized with a new overview of computers and attached drives, with e-mail notifications able to be sent to users if their licensed computer does not communicate with the service for 14 days, a similar e-mail for internal and external drives that have not been backed up for some time, and a frequent account summary message for all devices on the account. The client is now twice as fast in compiling a list of files to back up, and removed the 4GB individual file size limit, allowing any file to be backed up.

01/21, 9:02am

Hitachi praised for reliability; Seagate cheaper, less reliable

Backup cloud services company BackBlaze have studied the platter-based hard desktop drives that have been in use since the launch of the service. At the end of 2013, the company had evaluated 27,134 drives from five different manufacturers across 15 different models spinning in its BackBlaze Storage Pods, and collated the data on drive reliability in a study, published today.

11/13, 6:58pm

Company has evaluated 25,000 drives for up to five years

Online backup provider Backblaze has begun to evaluate drive failure rates with commercial-grade drives. The company maintains 25,000 drives spinning 24 hours a day -- roughly one quarter of Facebook's capacity -- and has noted that 78 percent of the drives they have purchased have lasted longer than four years.

02/20, 10:00am

New model increases drive capacity, updates unit specs

Online backup provider Backblaze is publicizing its open-source rack storage solution, dubbed the Storage Pod in 2009. The specification of the rack solution has now been upgraded to version 3.0, which "stores more data, costs less, is more reliable, and is easier to service." Among the improvements made are a redesigned chassis, and upgraded components.

10/26, 1:10pm

Should be less taxing on local systems

Online backup firm Backblaze has launched a significant upgrade to its service and client software, collectively labeled v2.0. One of the chief differences is the removal of several upload restrictions. Files can now be of any size, or of any type, including even system or ISO files. Similarly, users can now backup VMware and virtual machines.

07/20, 4:20pm

Company posts doit-yourself plans

Backblaze has announced that it has updated its budget-priced Storage Pod concept, doubling the capacity and performance while lowering the cost below the original design. The second-generation model now represents a 135TB server fitting into the same 4U rack space, with component costs totaling just $7,384. Although the company uses the Storage Pod 2.0 for its own $5/month backup service, the design is free to use for do-it-yourself projects.